ENROLLMENT TO OPEN FOR CHARTER

Sweetwater board mulls over new school’s funding situation

CHULA VISTA 
Enrollment for a new South Bay charter school begins next week, but not all in the community think the school is a good idea.

The Stephen W. Hawking Math and Science Charter School is set to open in July. To get up and running the school will borrow $468,459 from the Sweetwater Union High School District, though it won’t be part of the district. The charter school will reimburse the district over the next two years, as well as pay for some additional services, like rent and administrative overhead.

At a school board meeting last month ﻿several community members voiced their concern about the startup fees, which will come out of the district’s general fund.

“The reality is that it will be siphoning resources that are intended to be spent on our current and future seventh through 12th population,” teachers union President Alex Anguiano said.

Board member Bertha Lopez said she also had some apprehension.

“I’m very concerned because we have 23 campuses in this district that need to be taken care of,” she said. “This board was elected to serve the kids from seventh through twelfth, not preschool to sixteenth grade. We need to take care of our kids.”

The Hawking charter school, which will be at 465 L St, is designed to serve students age 4½ through college. It will begin this year with 125 prekindergarten through third grade students and a class of 30 seventh graders. The school will add one grade level each school year.

Enrollment is open to students, including those with special needs, from all school districts, though first priority will be given to students who live within the Sweetwater school district boundaries. Children of Sweetwater faculty will receive a guarantee of admission, up to 10 percent of the school’s student population. Siblings of students who are enrolled in the charter school will be guaranteed admission as space is available. Should the number of valid applicants exceed the number of available openings, the school will conduct a random public lottery.

There are three enrollment periods: March 16 to April 30; May 7 to June 29; and July 2 to July 18. Enrollment age for the kindergarten class is 4½ as of July 1.

The charter school will work on establishing partnerships with universities so all students graduate from college.

Superintendent Ed Brand said Sweetwater’s average daily attendance is down by 800 students, which means a loss of about $2 million in funding, and those numbers will continue to fall if the district doesn’t do something.

He said students opting to go to charter schools in the Chula Vista Elementary and South Bay School District is one of the main reasons for the decline in enrollment. He said he believes the new charter school will be a financial benefit to the district in the long term.

“We have an innovative idea using science, technology, engineering, arts and math as a draw,” Brand said, adding that enough parents have signed a petition to move forward with the school. “So we either give the client, the community what they want or somebody else will and they’ll continue to drain our financial reserves.”